I know it's the spring/summer season, but does anyone have experience brewing a pumpkin ale?Preferably partial extract using canned "just pumpkin" instead of fresh real pumpkin. I would like to use canned for ease and because of timing. Brewing in late August, so this is ready and at it's prime 2 months latter at around Halloween.

A recipe that I have uses 30 oz. canned pumpkin. I was going to spread this only pumpkin puree on a baking sheet and bake at 350F for 1 hour to get browned/caramelized pumpkin and baked taste (not from this recipe). Most commercial pumpkin beers that I have tried are not "pumpkiny" enough for my taste and taste like only pumpkin pie spices.

I have done a few in my day and have been pretty happy with them. My all grain recipe uses a 10 lb pumpkin (baked prior to being mashed with the grains). Rice hulls have to be used or the run off is really slow. I guess my point is that I am not sure you would be happy with only 2 lbs in 5 gallons but I know I have been happy with 8-10 lbs.

If so, I wonder what the actual weight of just the used portion is (the recipe I have has a fresh pumpkin weight as well as a canned option) I'll check the book later "Extreme Brewing" by Sam Calagione (Dogfish head brewery owner)

Some other internet researched recipes have you not mashing the pumpkin. Just adding the baked/browned pumpkin to the boil. There idea is that you don't really need to utilize the minimal starches converted to sugars and you only what the pumpkin flavor. They feel the mashing and difficult stuck sparge is more trouble than it's worth. They also like to add the spices at different times, just like hop additions, for various degrees of bittering,flavor, or aroma. The part about not mashing is interesting, but I think I'd stay with the usual spice addition times.

That was a 10 lb pumpkin prior to dissecting it. after removing the innards, maybe it is 6-8 lbs or so that I put in the mash. Interesting ways to make a pumpkin beer. It is not one I brew alot. Maybe one a year so I kind of just stuck with what works.

Any yeast recommendations? The recipe I'd base this one off would be an octoberfest style I think. Maybe try 4 lbs. total libby's puree pumpkin. I guess to make this a halloween prime ready beer a late july or early august start time is needed (1 week primary, 2 weeks secondary, 2 months in bottle) 3 months total time.

John, You have said that after the boil and chilling you siphon from the kettle to the fermenter. Trying to leave as much sediment as possible behind. The idea being that the sediment can cause off flavors from the yeast correct?

-When adding any fermentables in the secondary (can of oregon puree, pumpkin, honey etc.) aren't we creating a bunch of sediment?-Even more sediment when added at the last part of the boil, or flame out?

I'm thinking about the large amount of pumpkin in a pumpkin recipe where it's not mashed. The large amount would be baked in the oven then either full boiled, end of boil, flame out, or secondary added. The base recipe would be your extract with partial grain octoberfest recipe (maybe with the hops reduced a little so they don't overpower the spice and pumpkin)

On the first point, trub in the primary in large amounts can cause off aroma/flavor in the beer. Higher trub levels results in higher fusel alcohols in the beer. This is most important during the initial yeast growth phase right after pitching the yeast and as the yeast cells multiply before fermentation.

In the secondary the yeast cells are mostly there in large quantity and are not in a rapid yeast growth phase, so the chance of producing fusel alcohols would be lower.

I recall reading that using a blow off hose helps to get rid of some of these fusel alcohols as well.Something also about fusel alcohols being involved in hangover headaches.

-If I went with say 6-8lbs of pumpkin would different boil times yield more or less trub sediment? -Trying to find what the best boil time would be, at the very least maybe it needs to be some time before the last 15 minutes and the irish moss addition?-Would you reduce the hops from the base octoberfest extract w/ grains recipe?-Both the bittering/boil hops and flavor hops also, since there will be a last few minutes spice addition?-I've seen some recipes suggest that a longer boil say 90 min total will produce a more dextrinous wort, aren't the dextrin levels set by what the grains and extract provided and not created by boiling?-Is there an easy way to measure the amount of starch for a given adjunct that gets converted in the mash to fermentable sugars? (there is the idea that you don't really get that much sugars from mashing pumpkin, and it's more trouble than it's worth, so for flavor add right to the boil)

I'm going to bake 3-4 29oz cans of libby's 100% pumpkin at 350F for an hour to brown and get a baked pumpkin pie rather than raw pumpkin taste. I'm just debating when in the boil to add the baked pumpkin is best? Leaning towards doing 30 min boil before adding the pumpkin for the last 30min. Thinking the baked browned caramelized pumpkin may need some time to fully dissolve. The link recipe full boils, but I figure 30 min might be the best of hop utilization, solids coagulating maybe, and not totally boiling out aroma.They spice addition at different times for the spice bitterness, but I'm going with your last min of the boil plan.